Parking lot fiascos

Yesterday, my friend Angela brought up a common cause of moron tax -- losing one's car in the parking lot. A few years ago, when I was living in Chicago, I was running late for a job interview that required me to wear heels, nylons, and a suit. I parked the car in the underground lot beneath Grant Park and bolted to my interview several blocks away. When I was done with the interview, a snowstorm had dumped roughly 6 inches of snow on the ground. To shorten the distance I would spend walking through the snow in my nylons and heels, I ducked into the first entry to the parking lot that I saw, figuring that I would walk the rest of the way underground. That was where I first went wrong. I spent close to an hour walking all through the parking garage (up and down the various subterranean levels) in my cold, wet, and pinching heels looking for my car. Eventually, a parking attendant took pity and drove me in his electric scooter around the garage. After a half hour of that, it occurred to him that I might have been dumb enough to have parked in the other, adjacent underground parking lot. Well, of course, I did. And of course, I had to go back to where I started and walk the rest of the way through the cold snow to get to it.

Sum of the moron tax? Two hours of my time + three blisters to my feet + moderately public humiliation + $55 pair of ruined heels + $6 pair of ruined nylons + $16 additional parking fees for the two hours I spent lost. I don't think I got the job, either.